earticle

영어

This study offers a Lacanian psychoanalytic reading of Jane Austen’s Emma, interpreting the heroine’s obsessive matchmaking as a symptom of obsessional neurosis and her resistance to marriage as a defense mechanism that preserves her exceptional status and emotional bond with her father. Rather than following a typical Oedipal structure, Emma’s psyche aligns with Lacan’s “Obsessional Quartet,” where death or the figure of the dead serves as her proxy in pursuing desire, keeping her distanced from her own. Her matchmaking becomes a neurotic strategy to maintain symbolic control while avoiding the risks of entering the marriage economy herself. Emma neither rejects (as seen in psychosis) nor denies (as in perversion) the authority of the Order but represses it, sustaining the illusion of autonomy within its confines. Set in 19th-century England’s patriarchal society, Emma's social role is defined by marriage. Her anxiety over potential social decline leads her to invest in matchmaking fantasies rather than face her own desires. Her concern for reputation —evident in her reactions to social events like the Box Hill incident—reveals her vulnerability. Though she appears fulfilled by the novel’s end, Lacanian theory suggests the gap between the Symbolic and the Real leaves a lingering lack. Thus, Emma remains caught in an ongoing cycle of repression, fantasy, and unresolved desire.